They did this with urokinase a few years ago. The new alternative tPA was too expensive compared to urokinase. Since urokinase was made from cultures of uroepithelial cells, someone suggested there might be a infection risk, although no had been reported in the 40 million administered doses.

Google and particularly Google Scholar make it much easier to find the article that you read a few months ago "somewhere" but can't quite remember all of the details. My partners and I use it multiple times a week. In fact, just yesterday, two of us were just discussing how useful Google was and how much it would have helped in residency.

As mentioned above, historical, we checked reference books, which are usually 5 to 10 years behind current practice due to the time it takes to publish. Journals are more up to date, but have not been as easily searched and read. May doctors would tear our interesting articles to file them in a cabinet for "easy" reference, but the filing system was frequently inadequate.

Now with Google we can search many more journals than before. The only problem is DRM which sometimes prevents us from reading what appears to be the prefect article for a particular case, but all we get is the abstract. The rest is locked behind a pay wall.

Also as mentioned above Wikipedia is a great starting point for some of the less common esoteric diagnoses and to refresh ones memory.